Sangría
by MapleFlavouredIce
Summary: Wine makes such bitter companions of men, never being able to quite replace that longing deep down in their hearts. implied Joshua/Neku


Acidity is the first note to play along young lips, to scorch the dry throat and sear away worries. It's a faint tint of something quite lemon in nature, or perhaps it's lime or orange. A syrupy, gamboge flavour makes its way past, rolling down with a stickiness leaving tongue to snap the parted mouth closed and lick the residue left round. There's just enough Romanée Conti to make the drinker feel more than a little guilty, but also inordinately intoxicated and jovial, wanting to finish the bottle day bought than later. Alizarin crimson is such a beguiling colour.

Sangría today. Bottle of Mouton Rothschild yesterday, Chateau Lafite the week before; for three days before that it was a vintage Pétrus, bottles of the stuff glittering in fluorescent lighting with the reflections of iceberg eyes in their depths, lust of unfortunates.

Long had the man with orange peel hair lain behind his davenport that faced the street and held flagon to his lips, drinking away what should have been forgotten so long ago. All he knew about the children he had left (left when he had suddenly awoke with a gasp, stuck in his bed after not taking a breath ever long) was still trapped behind mind; annoying yet wonderful.

The wine cabinet is the blue eyed male's best friend, as he sees wisteria and silvery wisps before his sight, Saint Emilion in hand. He's drinking his sorrows away, because all he lives are those three weeks in replay, repeat over and over in his mind. Blinding colours and debilitating emotions course through sluggish veins, the window frame below his fingers as breeze ruffles hair and cools face. It's been six years to the dot today.

A shout outside and two blondes, one of still de grain, the other more like a fruity champagne – isn't there some in the fridge, yes, yes there is – look towards him; all waves and all smiles. He thinks they're telling him to come, 104 they say, but a flick of the wrists and a gurgled _no_ the twenty-one year old stumbles to the room where he can still hear a patter and feel a misty heat.

In the mirror there's a person he doesn't recognize, but he tells himself it's because the glass is stained a deep rust colour (something odd about how it smells but he thinks nothing as a razor finds way to sweaty palm) and steps in the puddles forming at the base of the tub and under the spray. Lavender soap finds way to his locks, cleaning a week's grit out and cleansing his pores along the way. Grime lines the vanilla coffee been porcelain, and he walks round the house with nary an item on, tossing the glinting blade in the bin where he keeps all his paints and doodles, CDs and pictures printed from his phone (all with dates from the same month, all within two weeks of each other).

The moon's high in the sky before he sits back down in a sickly candy apple ball chair, facing a wall where the TV used to be. He's retired to a pitcher of his favourite wine punch, reminiscent of a Spanish summer. The young taste reminds him of his childhood, begins to remind him of Shibuya's song and then it _just won't stop_. He has to pick that glass up now to drown out all the noise – it's so sickening and like him, like the man he loves but shouldn't; why, why won't it leave?

A slump and the splat of pineapple of the floor an hour later means that the troubled youth will finally be in peace for a few hours more, as he shuts himself from the world and dies to those who know not otherwise. The pitcher shatter across the floor, stained with a wine that looks so much like the sleeper's _sangre_. Window sill open the night air quietly walks in, following the shinning form of its Shibuya embodied by man. The sight before the one with dismayed eyes and pastel hair gazes at the back of the wilted body in the chair, going over to pick the twenty-one year old up and tuck him in the davenport. Roses flee the once ruddy and gorgeous cheeks, fingers of the iceberg eyes male so icy to the touch.

Short gasps leave the chest and alcohol swims through and replaces blood. The music ails and pleads to be freed, grasps through the Composer and begs on its laurels. It can not sing such notes of honey by self, it needs companion and hope and the Angel in front of it. Wisteria eyes cringe, hardening until he must leave the room as the music intertwines amongst itself in a chaotic attempt of persuasion. He can feel a frosty presence in the body and looks across the street, shrouded figure and pruning hook gleaming and striding with purpose and gaudy glee. It takes the man with hair of precious metal and floral eyes most of his willpower to halt the trickle down his cheeks.

And all he can wonder is if it was he or the sangría shattered on the floor that destroyed the only soul he could have loved.


End file.
